Chap. II.] lERIGATION. 433 



droughts are of frequent occurrence and of long con- 

 tinuance ; and vegetation in the low and scarcely undu- 

 lated plains is mainly dependent on dews and whatever 

 damp is distributed by the steady sea-breeze. In some 

 places the sandy soil rests upon beds of madrepore and 

 coral rock, through which the scanty rain percolates 

 too quickly to refresh the soil ; and the husbandman is 

 entirely dependent upon wells and village tanks for tlie 

 means of migation. 



In a region exposed to such vicissitudes the risk would 

 have been imminent and incessant, had the population 

 been obhged to rely on supplies of dry grain alone, the 

 growth of wliich must necessarily have been precarious, 

 owing to the possible failure or deficiency of the rains. 

 Hence frequent famines would have been inevitable in 

 those seasons of prolonged dryness and scorching heat, 

 when " the sky becomes as brass and the earth as iron." 



Wliat an unspeakable blessing that against such ca- 

 lamities a security should have been found by the intro- 

 duction of a grain calculated to germinate under water ; 

 nd that a perennial supply of the latter, not only 

 adequate for aU ordinary purposes, but sufficient to guard 

 against extraordinary emergencies of the seasons, should 

 have been pro\ided by the ingenuity of the people, aided 

 by the bounteous care of their sovereigns. It is no 

 matter of surprise that the kings who devoted their 

 treasures and their personal energies to the formation 

 of tanks and canals have entitled their memory to tra- 

 ditional veneration, as benefactors of their race and 

 country. In striking contrast, it is the pithy remark of 

 the autlior of the Raj avail, momning over the extinction 

 of the Great Dynasty and the dechne of the country, 

 that '"'■ because the fertility of the land was decreased the 

 kings who followed were no longer of such consequence 

 as those who went before." ^ 



' Rajavali, p. 238. 

 VOL. I. F F 



